NationStates Jolt Archive

First Commissar Rubrek stood waiting impatiently outside the banquet hall of the Winter Palace, in it's cavernous reception hall. Although the New Sterling Royal family were long dead, the Palace was still used for it's ancient tradition - meetings between heads of state.

The three most powerful blocks would be represented at what should be an eventful summit - all three with ambition and guile. Rubrek would be representing one-third of the Hyperion Coast faction - the faction with total control over the massive oil fields in the Hyperion Ocean. The DK faction would also be there - representing several of the larger inland countries, with access to extremely large gold and platinum deposits - the wealth from which had been deployed to frustrate Hyperion Coast interests on more than one occasion. The last faction to be represented at the summit was the Shadows Group. Although small and relatively weak, their countries straddled some of the busiest trade routes on the planet. On the one time the Shadows Group had actually closed the routes with their tiny navy, it had sparked a global recession which had taken a decade to escape.

The aides were looking impatient now, shifting uneasily in their impractical livery. Suddenly, there was the sound of a helicopter landing on the helipad to the front of the place. Rubrek straightened his dark red tunic and turned to face the door.

Xavier, the diplomat for The Confederacy of Chronicales, walked into the reception hall of the Winter Palace, disgusted at the decadence he saw there. There was Rubrek - a man who had sold more weaponry to terrorist than legitimate trading partners. And now he was supposed to shake hands with him? What was the government thinking? This man should be killed not negotiated with! The government must employ at least a few assassins!

President Lucifer wanted this to go smoothly and by the books, as the small oil fields in the north of Chronicales began to run dry. Without a fresh supply, the economy would grind to a halt and the powerful Chasm-Ark class dreadnoughts that secured the coast of his country would have to be recalled to dock.
The man was a leech and a parasite and a terrorist - but they needed his oil!

"First Commissar, what a pleasure to see you again!"

Rubrek grasped his hand firmly and in his friendliest voice welcomed the Ambassador to the Winter Palace of the People's Revolution. The Ambassador and his diplomatic party were escorted slowly away by security staff to their private chambers. Which were heavily bugged. Of course.

Insignificant representative of an insignificant country. Rubrek took delight in supplying the Chronicales Seperatist Movement with as much free small-arms ammunition as they wanted. Only last year, the terrorists had detonated one of New Sterling's experimental nerve agent bombs in a crowded shopping centre - and the death toll for that had been spectacular! There had been an outcry and protests of course, but without the military might to back in up it was all bluster - what was the difference between freedom fighters and terrorists after all?

And if the Chronicales ever tried their little stunt with the trade routes again, the Movement would find themselves in possession of a few free low-yield nuclear warheads......

Prince Jinkeze sipped a glass of apple wine and gazed out of his window with a bitter expression. His father had sent him to this hellish region, which encapsulated everything he found distasteful. From his diplomatic jet, he could see smog laying thick over the land, obscuring sunlight and life. The view for miles around was scorched and brown. Deep mines shook the earth and funeral pyres of oil refineries burned in countless number. How could this filthy land be someones "utopia"?

The Kingdom of Spathi had its problems, true, but the environment and freedom was precious to the Emperor. Of all the nations of the fragile allegiance of Dolphins and Kittens, Jinkeze feared none so much as New Sterling. People were more than just mere pawns; this nation was a blot, no, a scar on the planet. A corrupt and evil regime - but weighing in as a veritable juggernaut in economic comparison... which made them a threat. Rubrek wanted more, and he had the resources to take Spathi's verdant and untapped resources. Prince Jinkeze was here to soothe his lust for more and beg for mercy if necessary. But he would need to bluff a little first...

He looked up. The plane had landed. The young Prince stepped regally forward, an entourage of heavily armed and scantily dressed female guards following close behind. He observed the crimson-clothes and messy hair of the First Commissar without emotion, slowly put a glove on his hand and offered it to Rubrek, looking him sternly in the eye.

"Your Highness! What an honour!" said Rubrek, his eyes showing none of the acclaim that his voice spoke of as he grasped his hand and shook it.

"I'm so glad to see you again - although I have to admit I was expecting a less senior diplomat for such preliminary talks. The Commissar for Trade still remembers the concessions that you wrung from him last time with amazement - wherever they've imprisoned him!" Rubrek laughed with a roar, showing it to be a joke despite the fact that the man in question was rotting in Prison 17 in the far north.

His feelings about the prince were very different from his cheerful bluster. The fact that the Kingdom had sent one of their princes to New Sterling, a country which had quite cheerfully dispatched it's own royal family two centuries ago, had to be a carefully chosen snub. Not to mentioned that the Royal Family of Spathi had carefully used its wealth over the years to thwart many of the ingenious schemes that New Sterling's "Civil Protection" special division had cooked up over the years. The defeat of CP's attempt to assassinate the heir to the crown was still something of an open wound, and although CP operated terrorist cells in the Kingdom, they were being picked off with alarming ease by their AT forces. Not an immediate threat - but the Kingdom could easily become threatening in the future.

Rubrek gestured easily to a clutch of aides who were hovering nearby.

"The trip from the Kingdom must have tired you. My guards here will show you to your quarters where you may rest for a time. The preliminary conference will start in twelve hours. I hope to see you then"

As the ambassador moved away, an aide with a discrete silver stud on his shoulder lapel scurried up. Ordinarily, Rubrek would have swatted him away like the irritant that he was, except that the stud signified him as a member of Civil Protection.

"First Commissar, I have something to report" he whispered, head inclined slightly.

"Speak" said Rubrek irritably.

"Our hackers successfully breached the firewall that the Chronicales party were using to protect their personal computers. It was detected and the firewall was reset - but before it was, we detected a single e-mail being sent. However, the encryption was so strong that so far we have been unable to break it. Analysis shows a strong likelihood that it was heading for a Kingdom-operated server - although this is far from certain."

Rubrek stood silently for a moment.

"It won't matter what they do" he said with a sneer. "We still have total superiority in everything that counts."

Xavier's beeper went off, he would look at it until the guards where gone. It was most like his wife, but you could never tell if it was the government. The guards stop at his room, he thanked them but he didnt move until the disappeared round the far corner of the corridor.
The message said that someone had hacked the secure network with all the governments information anmd they didn't know what had been taken. It could be nothing or everything the last time this happened it had been a kid thinking he was very clever. His family still didnt know where his was of cpourse he had disappeared after his little scouting.
He would have to talk to the Spathi diplomate to see what he thought of everything that was happening, but that would happen later he needed a bath after arriving.

"And you're sure they didn't detect your intrusion?"

"We're assuming for the moment that the firewall reset was a simple automatic counter-measure by the computer software. If we recieve a complaint from the delegation then we'll know for certain"

Rubrek paused for a moment, then answered.

"They won't make a fuss - they can't afford to. Continue your attempts to hack their firewall. And redouble your attempts to break the Kingdom's firewall. I need to know what they're thinking before the summit starts."

The Civil Protection officer scurried away down a flight of stairs into the Palace's dingy wine cellars, where the CP temporary headquarters was based.

The smell of cooking food wafted it's way through the hall. The 'informal buffet' was almost ready. And the listening devices were almost positioned. Hosting the summit was fun.